Torah. To the Pharisees, who valued tradition, Jesus was a shocking new kind of rabbi, an uneducated country bumpkin who preached radical new ideas, violated the Sabbath, and surrounded himself with whores, tax collectors, and an array of poorly educated followers. As zealous and righteous men they felt a duty to stop this itinerant troublemaker. The Sadducees were the aristocratic inheritors of the lucrative commercial temple trade. They sold doves and lambs for sacrifices—at profitable prices.